I think when we are first learning, as you are, sometimes we get to caught up in "the front of our brains," thinking through step by step and in essence paralyzing ourselves. Then when called upon to simply "let the body act" at speed, you find the movements are getting in there.
There is no substitute for going slowly enough to maintain good structure and accuracy - also let's you learn to pace movement to relaxed breathing patterns - but yes in each class I find it is also is worthwhile to simply "go with the flow" at speed at least a couple of times on each technique and sometimes partnered w/ a relative newbie I will stay in the uke role for a while and just have them do repetition after repetition to help "get it in there."